Nye was on Crossfire last night, and basically had to deal with S.E. Cupp whining that scientists were being mean. We’re not joking, here’s the full clip and you can catch her complaints at around the three minute mark:

Nye won simply by issuing the withering takedown to both Cupp and Nicolas Loris, an economist with the Heritage Foundation, that “we disagree on the facts.” Which immediately started Cupp whining about how the “science group” is “bullying” the “public.”

The truth is that Loris doesn’t come off very well in this clip. He essentially says he’s not trying to deny climate change, but then essentially tries to deny climate change by arguing that the tornadoes and hurricanes hitting the US aren’t that bad, which is an argument we’d like to see him make to, say, the people who lived in Mayflower, AR. Similarly, Cupp’s bizarre attempt to make the discussion about public relations kind of says it all; when you know you can’t win an argument, change the subject.

The overwhelming scientific consensus is that the problem is caused by increased greenhouse gas emissions, right? Now, assuming the oil companies and coal companies don’t just voluntarily stop churning out those emissions out of the goodness of their hearts, then that’s going to require government action.

That’s how we solved the smog and water pollution crises when Nixon was president, and it’s how we solved the acid rain problem with GHWBush was president, and it’s how we need to solve the climate change problem.

But as long as Republicans are dug in to a fierce position of climate change denial — and they are, there’s no doubt about that — then the government will continue to do nothing to address the problem, and it will only continue to get worse:

Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus and high costs to taxpayers, there are still elected officials in Congress who refuse to accept that climate change is happening.

Over 56 percent — 133 members — of the current Republican caucus in the House of Representatives deny the basic tenets of climate science. 65 percent (30 members) of the Senate Republican caucus also deny climate change. What this means is that they have made public statements indicating that they question or reject that climate change is real, is happening, and is caused by human consumption of fossil fuels.

This refusal to accept overwhelming scientific evidence is not just a symptom of the rank-and-file backbenchers. Members of GOP leadership and the committees that make critical decisions on national energy policy and air pollution have even higher concentrations:

90 percent of the Republican leadership in both House and Senate deny climate change
17 out of 22 Republican members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, or 77 percent, are climate deniers
22 out of 30 Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, or 73 percent deny the reality of climate change
100 percent of Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Republicans have said climate change is not happening or that humans do not cause it

I really, really don’t understand why conservatives are so opposed to this. I mean, I realize that they’re getting a shitton of cash from the Koch Brothers and other climate change denialists and are doing what they’ve been paid to do, but at some point, you’d think that a desire to leave their grandchildren a livable planet would trump petty greed.

Is it just out of a reflexive desire to stick it to Al Gore? Or have you all been building a second planet that you’re all going to move to when this one turns to shit?

@Squish78 That’s what they’ve been trying to do, but to create solutions require large amounts of money. Governments have the most money, and can actually implement those solutions. Therein lies the problem; if scientists could act unilaterally, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

It should be noted that harming the environment wasn’t/isn’t the goal for these enormous corporate entities. It’s just a side effect. It’s in their best interest to deny the science, manipulate the facts, and throw money at politicians because regulating and changing their practices would eat into their bottom line and they can’t have it.

If citizens are ballsy enough to make a fuss corporations beat them over the head with a sack of cash and a harsh NDA to silence their dissent. It’s the sad practical reality that corporate responsibility is a myth.

Lets focus on presenting the methods to fix the problems at a for-profit entity. There needs to be a solution that not only fixes the problem, but generates revenue at the same time. Thats the problem. Theres currently no money in cleaning up our air/water/etc.

The best solution is to show a company how they not only make money by selling their product and generating cash, but by then also showing how to do the same by distributing the methods needed to clean it up. You cant appeal to the side of business thats for the good of the environment or whatever. No one gives a shit. Present it in positive cash flow, and you’ll see a difference.

As far as needing a large amount of money, thats where R&D at the larger corps come into play. But, you have to show that there will be a positive gain from burning that cash in the first place. Im sure we have some decent scientists on this planet that can figure it out.

@Squish Like the first step in AA implies, you can’t fix something until you acknowledge there’s a problem. Our government is still stuck on step 1, which is why we need scientists to “complain” about it until somebody with power (the government) listens.

Right, I remember how Ford Motors single-handedly beat back the Nazis, and how IBM led the way in ending segregation in the South. HAIL THE ALL MIGHTY FREE MARKET! IT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THAT IS GOOD!

Now, you know, there is a pretty good free-market solution to the climate crisis, a conservative idea called “cap and trade.” Promoted in the GHWBush administration, embraced by GWBush and formally embraced by McCain-Palin in 2008.

“There needs to be a solution that not only fixes the problem, but generates revenue at the same time.”

I think that’s more than a little wrong-minded. Not every venture is inherently profitable. You can’t simply say “industry is profitable now, so it must be in the future.”

If there’s a game you can only win by hurting others, and then someone starts enforcing rules preventing such actions, the problem isn’t this annoying new rule that’s suddenly getting in your way, but the fact that you weren’t playing nicely from the get-go and you’d prefer to just keep winning, regardless of the effect it has on others.

No, reflexively insisting that both parties are exactly the same on this or any other issue is what’s delusional.

For all their many many faults, Democrats in Congress have tried to do more to address this crisis than Republicans have. They are less in the pocket of Big Oil and Big Coal, they are more receptive to the scientific consensus on climate change, and they have advanced more legislation to address this problem.

Hey, Langwulf, pick an economic growth metric — any single one: GDP, GNP, Dow Jones, S&P, inflation, unemployment — and show me how things have been worse under this Democratic administration than they were under the last Republican one.

The problem with all the bickering is we aren’t coming up with solutions. Even if it isn’t happening and isn’t man made, there’s nothing wrong with coming up with safer and more environmentally friendly alternatives. And if it, we should stop it. Sadly we ( and the government) think painting bus roofs white and driving Priuses will solve the problem. But considering China and India are larger producers of green house gases than us and have pretty much told the Kyoto treaty to go fuck itself, we’re probably better off developing ways to adapt to and deal with climate change than try to stop or reverse it. Plenty of scientists believe we can’t stop it anyway, that we’ve done too much damage.

In any case, we do need less government. Say what you will about the free market, but as ridiculous as Otto mans above comment was, his one below nailed it. Maybe if we didn’t have a system that takes bribes

@Squish78 – The solutions are known and available. Have been for a while. The problem is that deniers of the facts, refuse to implement them. Thus, education and re-education are what is needed to solve the problem.

You sound like Jenny McCarthy complaining that no one has cured polio.

Profit motive: it’s probably profitable to try and keep your world habitable for longer than one more century, to try and keep your consumer base from being killed or rendered homeless by the thousands by natural disasters that are increasing in frequency and magnitude. If corporations and economists weren’t all just burying their heads in the sand about this issue, they would/should be inclined to take the short-term hit to their books and adopt the fiscally sub-optimal green technologies and practices of today in order to make every effort to ensure that there will be a “tomorrow.”

As long as climate change deniers hold positions of power, climate change discussion and the presentation of undeniable scientific fact will be important and necessary.

Also, your weird worship of business as the holy great be-all and end-all of all possible progress is just strange. Government coffers are the single largest source of funding worldwide, and until governments are brought to bear on this issue, widespread implementation of already existing (!) solutions will be impossible. And, yes, profit motive is a very strong force, but, if you have any knowledge of economic history, profit motive tends to be extraordinarily shortsighted and myopic. Remember as recently as 2008, when major banks ignored obvious signs that what they were doing would destroy the economy and send millions of people into poverty? Yeah, they didn’t care because they were getting rich in the short-term and at the expense of people they don’t give two shits about.

Politicians and the government receive huge sums of money to make sure that oil/coal/etc gets preference. So, you expect the same government that is run by politicians who are funded by these companies to then go in a different direction? Thats a good way for them to lose their seats, which we all know they hold on to by any means necessary.

FACT: Mr. Wizard mixed science with sorcery like a modern day Doctor Doom. In the process of creating “untime” he inadvertently zapped himself from existence (from this plane of reality anyway). Hundreds of years from now, he will reappear from this exile and save the Earth from alien invasion.

@Duchess …Mr. Wizard is the Doctor Doom that defeated the all powerful Beyonder in the comic book saga Secret Wars.

I had not known that he was the son of a gypsy though, but it makes sense… back in Vietnam when Mr. Wizard fought alongside Mr. Rogers (marine corps sniper turned friendly neighborhood icon), his call sign was “Nomad” which is synonymous with gypsy. I think they had a combined 200 kills or something (not counting women and children).

@Duchess …Mr. Rogers had various aliases ranging from The Hood to Grandpa Cuddles. But make no mistake, he was the deadliest killer on the planet. That’s why Bozo The Clown had his master assassin Cookie eliminate him.

@BurnsyFan66 Yeah i bet Prince Tuesday helped Cookie plot it out. Simple win/win Cookie goes back to his dark master with completed assignment and Tuesday gets a window of opportunity to poison his father King Friday and take the throne.

I guess this week’s episode of Cosmos really stuck in the conservative’s craw. Regardless if man is causing climate change, why not look for better sources of energy, why not find different ways to run cars, why not try to pollute the air less? Good god, America decided to go to the moon and did it in less than a decade, but to create a viable non-gasoline car is too hard? Oil and coal is not unlimited, but solar energy is, just seems like a no-brainer.

You’re absolutely right, we should be doing all of that, plus putting a huge emphasis on energy conservation. It’s pretty unsexy, but friends of mine who are green engineers say it’s probably the biggest thing the average person can do.

But, ya know, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations can spend unlimited money to influence elections, so companies dependent on the status quo do everything they can to make sure nothing changes, even as the world burns.

And let’s not forget that loan guarantees are NOT loans. They are the government stepping in and telling a lender that the gov’t will repay the loan if the company fails/defaults. This results in companies getting lower interest rates (because they’re lower risk). In the end, UNLESS THE COMPANY FAILS/DEFAULTS, loan guarantees cost virtually NOTHING to the government.

Solyndra failed, and that’s why it cost the government money. It was a start-up in a sector of the economy dominated by entrenched interests that pay for a lot of political influence and have benefited for DECADES from indirect and direct subsidies from the government (e.g., oil companies benefit indirectly from government building roads so cars can burn lots of gasoline).

If we subsidized alternative energy on-par with how we subsidize fossil fuels, we’d all be off the grid with solar panels and windmills not only providing all our home electricity needs, but also powering our electric cars. This would put fossil fuel companies out of business, so they use their entrenched political/market power to stifle innovation and kill competition.

I guess the problem with solar and wind energy is that 1. its not as effective as the current means and 2. its incredibly expensive, at least short term for set up. So since the cost is higher than going with “what we have” and as of yet it is not as effecient as “what we have”, it becomes the problem of not wanting to spend the money.

As for your NASA thing, I agree somewhat. We had to get to the moon 1st to “BEAT THE RUSKIES!” Then we got there and decided it wasnt worth our time. We spent so much money to build paper thin shuttles and electronic equipment with a zero margin of error and no way to fix it once it was gone. So naturally to “save money”, we decided to change NASA.

Why didnt we just send them to the oceans? There are 2 types of “earth” energy that have proven to work well. Water turbines, Niagra and Hover Dam examples, and geothermal. The oceans have both. Nasa could be at the forefront of this. Especially since alot of exploring oceans mimics exploring space.

I know its not really “sexy” to explore the oceans, but it does relate to space exploration in some ways. The no oxygen. The idea that you need to stay with your “vehicle” or your not going home. The fact that we know just as much about space as we do about our oceans.
And think….. we have ‘Alien” species at the bottom of our oceans.

And honestly, we could learn more about the history of our planet, of live on our earth, by exploring the oceans than we could from exploriing space. I think alot of the appeal about space is from liteature or “hollywood”. There is just as much cool stuff under the oceans. Seamonsters perhaps…….

This is how discussing climate change is going out there. In Canada, they cut the best climate researcher’s budgets. In China, they generally don’t worry about many of the pervasive, lingering effects of pollution. And in the US, where people have the most agency to make industry and individual changes, conservatives try to shut up smart people like Bill Nye and climate scientists, by flashing their chompers at them. All it comes down to is facts-we mistreat our environment and impact it’s balances, which we have, we will be harmed, like the animals we are.

“CNN, what you’ve just shown is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Frenchy said: “energy conservation. It’s pretty unsexy, but friends of mine who are green engineers say it’s probably the biggest thing the average person can do”. Not really the biggest, more likely it is the easiest for anyone to do. A much more significant and permanent lowering of anyone’s carbon footprint results from not having kids, who then won’t have their kids, who th….

It’s a no-brainer, but unfortunately, it’s also a non-starter for most people, and meanwhile there will be others multiplying like rabbits.

The birthrate in the developed world is basically replacement level or power (2 children per woman), so this multiplying-like-rabbits-problem is crap. The only places birthrates are high are the developing world which consume so much less per capita such that the impact of developed world’s lesser fertility is completely offset.

Ya know what one of the best things you can do to help the environment is…Get rid of your Dogs! HOW Do you win a war of information, when one of your suggestions is “Ya know what, these puppies, GARBAGE!”

The irony of calling a nerdy guy a bully is superseded by the idea somehow could discard facts so readily and claim anyone genuinely trying to inform them is just a bully–as if it were so cruel that someone dare suggest a fallible person could be fallible.

“How dare you use your field-specific expertise to give me sound advice that I don’t want to follow unless I have to!” – more or less.

SE Cupp spoke at my school (I also had the chance to talk to her briefly). She is very adept at moving the goalposts.

The video above is also not the first time she has used “bullying” in a comical fashion (nor is it even her most outlandish). She accused Michael Moore of bullying GUN OWNERS and turning them into pariahs – you know, because there’s nothing more fear-inducing than someone trying to “bully” a person with at least an appreciable cache (i.e. more than one pistol) of firearms.

When she was better on MSNC only because she was almost always next to Krystal Ball and my economics professor told me that 2 was better than 1.

By the way as much as Maher gets shat on I believe he is 100% correct when he calls out Cupp for being a fake atheist. I am giving it a couple more years before her book about her” miraculous” journey to “regaining” her faith comes out. That is after she sucks the marrow out of CNN and joins Fox News.

SE Cupp’s fixation on public opinion polls is adorable! “We’ve fought you every inch of the way, called you liars and communists and lunatics, and we’ve made up a shit-ton of nonsense to discredit you, and now all the public doesn’t believe you! How’d you screw that up?”

About 90 percent of Americans want to see expanded background checks for gun purchases. So can we have that, SE?

It’s a battle of the ‘tards! With about 10 viewers worldwide. Anybody with any sense knows the only climate change is from winter to spring to summer to fall. Global warming is nonsense, as well as human impact on climate. These are like the people in the 70s who warned Nixon that New York and DC would be under water by the year 2000. Not a single prediction has come true, and none of their models or theories can be reproduced in a lab. It’s a bunch of noise from people who want to make others miserable while sitting in their ivory towers.

You mean the clip where he talks about the EARTH BEING FINE??!?! Yeah he’s right the PLANET EARTH will be fine, it’s the environment that we live in that will be harmed and therefore harm those that live in it.

He’s a comedian, sometimes he makes very astute observations. In this case though, I’m going with the fucking scientists since the methods they use are the same methods that got me chatting with your dumb ass.

Co-founder of Greenpeace, Dr. Patrick Moore’s statement before the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight on February 25, 2014:

“In 1971, as a PhD student in ecology I joined an activist group in a church basement in Vancouver Canada and sailed on a small boat across the Pacific to protest US Hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska. We became Greenpeace.

After 15 years in the top committee I had to leave as Greenpeace took a sharp turn to the political left, and began to adopt policies that I could not accept from my scientific perspective. Climate change was not an issue when I abandoned Greenpeace, but it certainly is now.

There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years. If there were such a proof it would be written down for all to see. No actual proof, as it is understood in science, exists.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states: “It is extremely likelythat human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” (My emphasis) “Extremely likely” is not a scientific term but rather a judgment, as in a court of law. The IPCC defines “extremely likely” as a “95-100% probability”. But upon further examination it is clear that these numbers are not the result of any mathematical calculation or statistical analysis. They have been “invented” as a construct within the IPCC report to express “expert judgment”, as determined by the IPCC contributors.

These judgments are based, almost entirely, on the results of sophisticated computer models designed to predict the future of global climate. As noted by many observers, including Dr. Freeman Dyson of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, a computer model is not a crystal ball. We may think it sophisticated, but we cannot predict the future with a computer model any more than we can make predictions with crystal balls, throwing bones, or by appealing to the Gods.

Perhaps the simplest way to expose the fallacy of “extreme certainty” is to look at the historical record. With the historical record, we do have some degree of certainty compared to predictions of the future. When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time. Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today. There is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia. The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming.

Today we remain locked in what is essentially still the Pleistocene Ice Age, with an average global temperature of 14.5°C. This compares with a low of about 12°C during the periods of maximum glaciation in this Ice Age to an average of 22°C during the Greenhouse Ages, which occurred over longer time periods prior to the most recent Ice Age. During the Greenhouse Ages, there was no ice on either pole and all the land was tropical and sub-tropical, from pole to pole. As recently as 5 million years ago the Canadian Arctic islands were completely forested. Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species. There is ample reason to believe that a sharp cooling of the climate would bring disastrous results for human civilization.
Moving closer to the present day, it is instructive to study the record of average global temperature during the past 130 years. The IPCC states that humans are the dominant cause of warming “since the mid-20th century”, which is 1950. From 1910 to 1940 there was an increase in global average temperature of 0.5°C over that 30-year period. Then there was a 30-year “pause” until 1970. This was followed by an increase of 0.57°C during the 30-year period from 1970 to 2000. Since then there has been no increase, perhaps a slight decrease, in average global temperature. This in itself tends to negate the validity of the computer models, as CO2 emissions have continued to accelerate during this time.

The increase in temperature between 1910-1940 was virtually identical to the increase between 1970-2000. Yet the IPCC does not attribute the increase from 1910- 1940 to “human influence.” They are clear in their belief that human emissions impact only the increase “since the mid-20th century”. Why does the IPCC believe that a virtually identical increase in temperature after 1950 is caused mainly by “human influence”, when it has no explanation for the nearly identical increase from 1910- 1940?

It is important to recognize, in the face of dire predictions about a 2°C rise in global average temperature, that humans are a tropical species. We evolved at the equator in a climate where freezing weather did not exist. The only reasons we can survive these cold climates are fire, clothing, and housing. It could be said that frost and ice are the enemies of life, except for those relatively few species that have evolved to adapt to freezing temperatures during this Pleistocene Ice Age. It is “extremely likely” that a warmer temperature than today’s would be far better than a cooler one.

I realize that my comments are contrary to much of the speculation about our climate that is bandied about today. However, I am confident that history will bear me out, both in terms of the futility of relying on computer models to predict the future, and the fact that warmer temperatures are better than colder temperatures for most species.

If we wish to preserve natural biodiversity, wildlife, and human well being, we should simultaneously plan for both warming and cooling, recognizing that cooling would be the most damaging of the two trends. We do not know whether the present pause in temperature will remain for some time, or whether it will go up or down at some time in the near future. What we do know with “extreme certainty” is that the climate is always changing, between pauses, and that we are not capable, with our limited knowledge, of predicting which way it will go next.

Thank you for the opportunity to present my views on this important subject.”

It must be great to be on the side that just attacks the messenger rather than debate the facts and statistics they bring up.

I could say that many of the climate scientists are seeking money from corporate sponsors and grant money from the government so they can skew their long range predictions any way they see gets them more money, but I won’t. I would rather show things that counter current long range predictions and that also disprove past long term predictions (like us having this discourse from dry land above water in 2014, a decade after a few long range predictions of the past.)

Too bad we can’t discuss the facts Dr. Patrick Moore brought up because you, like present day Greenpeace, obliterated his facts by saying that he now works for oil companies.

The public isnt being bullied, they just are not smart enough to understand the facts, so the science group is drilling that shit into the idiots heads so we can make a change as a planet, as a species, but no, there are too many fucking ignorant fuckheads outthere that are close minded and inept or making rational choices for a ggreater community.

“these prescriptions prohibiting making new coal fired power plants are going to make use less economically prosperous, less equipped to deal with these problems” (paraphrased)

… Really. So, if EVERYTHING was deregulated and wealthy corporations were allowed to do whatever they want, then OF COURSE, part of that profit would be spent on repairing the actual damage done to the environment.

Al Gore Sr was a big coal man, Up until 2003, while telling us all we needed to sacrifice to save the planet Al Gore was making $20k a year from a not so environmentally friendly Zinc Mine on his own property. We all know about his business dealings with Iil friendly Al Jazeera. I’m not a denier but that hypocrite can go fuck himself.

Don’t forget that Al Gore also put together Live Earth in 2007, a series of concerts to promote awareness of global warming and environmental concerns, that through poor planning and a crew of hypocritical faux-environmentalist celebrities actually did years worth of damage to the environment in a matter of hours.

A few years ago he was the champion of all that is Climate Change. Now that most of his hypocrisy and inconvenient half truths have been exposed we’re not supposed to mention him in Climate Change conversations?

Bullying? Telling the truth about FACTS isn’t bullying, it’s just stating a scientific consensus that is shared by 97% of scientists. It’s just like the War on Christmas. There isn’t one. The dominant side is just yelling at others because they don’t celebrate it and they are enemies because of that fact. My supporting climate change happening is because all of the evidence points to it being a certainty. Just like there being no War on Christmas because when I go outside from November – January, I’m bombarded by Christmas the moment I walkout the door.

Not that I disagree with climate change or am questioning the stat, but I distinctly remember earlier on in this debate, there was a lot more dissident among scientists on it. But in the last few years people have yelled “They all agree!” And everyone says it and no one cites anything backing it up. Does anyone (looking at you Otto man with your graphs and link) have data to support that?

Climate scientists agree: climate change is happening here and now. Based on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening. This agreement is documented not just by a single study, but by a converging stream of evidence over the past two decades from surveys of scientists, content analyses of peer-reviewed studies, and public statements issued by virtually every membership organization of experts in this field. Average global temperature has increased by about 1.4˚ F over the last 100 years. Sea level is rising, and some types of extreme events – such as heat waves and heavy precipitation events – are happening more frequently. Recent scientific findings indicate that climate change is likely responsible for the increase in the intensity of many of these events in recent years.

That’s from American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society with a membership of about 120,000+ scientists.

Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities,and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.

That page then has statements announcing unequivocal support for the idea that climate change is real and man-made from virtually every reputable scientific organization out there.

AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES

Statement on climate change from 18 scientific associations

“Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.” (2009)
American Association for the Advancement of Science

“The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society.” (2006)
American Chemical Society

“Comprehensive scientific assessments of our current and potential future climates clearly indicate that climate change is real, largely attributable to emissions from human activities, and potentially a very serious problem.” (2004)
American Geophysical Union

“Our AMA … supports the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment report and concurs with the scientific consensus that the Earth is undergoing adverse global climate change and that anthropogenic contributions are significant.” (2013)
American Meteorological Society

“It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide.” (2012)
American Physical Society

“The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.” (2007)
The Geological Society of America

“The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse‐gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s.” (2006; revised 2010)

SCIENCE ACADEMIES

International academies: Joint statement

“Climate change is real. There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring. The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems. It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities (IPCC 2001).” (2005, 11 international science academies)
U.S. National Academy of Sciences

“The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.” (2005)

U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

USGCRP emblem
U.S. Global Change Research Program

“The global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases. Human ‘fingerprints’ also have been identified in many other aspects of the climate system, including changes in ocean heat content, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, and Arctic sea ice.” (2009, 13 U.S. government departments and agencies)

INTERGOVERNMENTAL BODIES

IPCC emblem
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.”

“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely* due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

So where did that famous “consensus” claim that “97% of all scientists believe in global warming” come from? It originated from an endlessly reported 2009 American Geophysical Union (AGU) survey consisting of an intentionally brief two-minute, two question online survey sent to 10,257 earth scientists by two researchers at the University of Illinois. Of the about 3.000 who responded, 82% answered “yes” to the second question, which like the first, most people I know would also have agreed with.
Then of those, only a small subset, just 77 who had been successful in getting more than half of their papers recently accepted by peer-reviewed climate science journals, were considered in their survey statistic. That “97% of all scientists” referred to a laughably puny number of 75 of those 77 who answered “yes”.
That anything-but-scientific survey asked two questions: The first: “When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?” Few would be expected to dispute this…the planet began thawing out of the “Little Ice Age” in the middle 19th century, predating the Industrial Revolution. (That was the coldest period since the last real Ice Age ended roughly 10,000 years ago.)
The second question asked: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” So what constitutes “significant”? Does “changing” include both cooling and warming… and for both “better” and “worse”? And which contributions…does this include land use changes, such as agriculture and deforestation?

^^ Sorry to ruin your lives @Otto Man and @Jeff Sorensen . Its comical how you global warming missionaries will pull that 97% number with no question about where it came from. Ive seen it on infographics youve posted on here Otto. Fucking comical

Larry Bell, an endowed professor of space architecture, said he blames misrepresented statistics and misleading politicians for the widespread belief in global warming in his book, “Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind The Global Warming Hoax.”

“The notion of carbon dioxide being a pollutant is silly because carbon dioxide is what makes plants grow; it’s what whales breathe,” Bell said.

so? Until you show me that the 97% number came from somewhere else than the AGU phone survey (Which you know it didnt, you fucking sheep) what I “clumsily copy pasted” is perfectly valid. I didnt know only scientists were valid to copy paste on here. I could do what you do and link to bullshit biased wiki pages, i guess thats valid #sorrytoruinyourlife

Based on our abstract ratings, we found that just over 4,000 papers took a position on the cause of global warming, 97.1% of which endorsed human-caused global warming. In the scientist self-ratings, nearly 1,400 papers were rated as taking a position, 97.2% of which endorsed human-caused global warming. Many papers captured in our literature search simply investigated an issue related to climate change without taking a position on its cause.

Our survey found that the consensus has grown slowly over time, and reached about 98% as of 2011. Our results are also consistent with several previous surveys finding a 97% consensus amongst climate experts on the human cause of global warming.

So 97% of more than 4,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies — that’s my evidence.

And your counterargument is a “space architecture” guy who thinks whales breathe CO2.

Yeah you really ruined my life with this exchange. Im laughing so hard Im getting winded.

We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors’ self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research.

If you look at the 1st study you posted, they were asking for papers that supported their agenda.
Of course the majority of papers they received were from man made Global Warming supporters.
That’s like asking Democrats if the Republicans are racist every time they oppose Obama on something. They are fishing and biased towards one result.

Again, opinion has shifted somewhat since early 90s long range models have not held up.
Some of the models said that by 2004 the U.S. East Coast would be underwater.
Many have scientists have shifted sides on this because of the extreme alarmist nature and political nature climate science has taken.

Your 2nd link priceless. So 66.4% have no opinion on AGW and “32.6% endorsed AGW.”
Now of those “32.6% endorsed AGW” 97.1% endorse man made Global Warming.
97.1% of 32.6% is not a consensus of all scientists. That would make it roughly 29% of all scientists polled believe that there is Global Warming and that man is causing it.
Massage and be selective on reporting the results to fit your agenda.
Again, the 97.1% is from the 32.6% that endorsed AGW, not from the total number polled.
66.4% had no opinion.
Read your own data before posting it.

I’ve got to hand it to good old Otto. If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s following the herd and repeating the talking points that have been handed to him. Solid job actually explaining what the numbers he’s presenting mean.

“We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW.” These were papers produced (and researched for this study) on aspects of climate that are not studying AGW in particular. 97.1% of the papers actually dealing with change reached the conclusion that endorse AGW.

My biggest question about Climate change is how do we expect to “stop it”? Everything I have read about human climate change states that the start begin with the Industrial Revolution. And that since then humans have been hurting the planet and effecting the climate since.

I guess my question is that this all started about 175 years ago.(Industrial Revolution is generally stated to have begun in the 1840’s and 1850’s) So how are we gonna change 175 years worth of harm in just 20 or 30 years that scientists seem to indicate we have until “Global Catastrophy”?

I look at it like lung cancer. We can stop smoking and stop doing damage to our lungs, but we cant fix the damage we have already done. We will still have COPD or Emphysema. We can still end up with lung cancer. You have what you have.

So other than wait for the eventual disaster, we can we do to “fix” or world now???

The problem isn’t even us. It’s other nations that don’t care. India and China both outpace us in emissions and are going for more. So to use your analogy, if I’m a smoker and so is my wife and I get lung cancer, it doesn’t matter what I do if she’s blowing two packs a day right in my face. So unless we get them on board, all we can do is what we can to adapt to the coming changes

@Staubachlvr From a study at Concordia University: “The US, the researchers report, is the uncontested leader in contributing to global warming. The researchers calculated that the US alone is responsible for a global temperature increase of 0.15 degrees Celsius, a change that amounts to 20 percent of observable global warming.”

The US has been the big offender here, and both China and India are waiting to see what we do about global warming.

We’re number one all time but are at least trying to do something about it. But China already tops us and I misspoke on India. They’re on pace to lap us not beating us already. And other nations are slowly catching up.

I am mistaken about India. They are on pace to best us but haven’t yet. However china had, and other nations are getting close. So while the US is the all time leader, at least we recognize our problem are trying to do something. Other nations are getting worse, not “waiting to see what we do”

In the case of China and India, they *are* waiting to see what we do. They have said as much. The US has formidable R&D facilities at its disposal and that, along with our historical contribution to global warming, has put it in the position of being looked to for leadership on the subject.

Unfortunately, our own efforts to curb the problem have been…minimalistic, at best.

Here’s the thing, though…Staubachlvr is right about India & China, to the extent that, although they have not historically contributed to GW as the US has, as fast as they are developing their emissions will be severe. Ghandi feared India becoming a modern, consumerist nation, because he realized the global damage that would result would be catastrophic.

Bill Nye came off as a pretentious asshole. Everybody there agreed Climate Change is real and a problem. They just disagreed about how big of a problem it is and how pressing the need to fix it is compared to other problems that need to be solved.

Because Bill Nye IS a pretentious asshole. @crispin, Yes, his opinion is in the minority, but only when it comes to Uproxx commentators who are nothing more than yes men to the Uproxx narrative which they think makes them cool. Disagree with the narrative and you’re a troll.

@ troi. Cupp repeatedly calling the attempts to educate the nation as “scare tactics” is probably what did it. I understand the argument that there are more pressing needs that need to be met before a global remedy (a simplified term of course), but that’s not how you open a reasonable debate. It mocks the severity of the issue and it lets your opposition know how petty you are willing to be the rest of the debate. It’s some underhanded bullshit.

Well, the “need to fix it” thing is really the crux of the whole issue, no? Simply believing climate change exists isn’t anything. You might as well say America’s political system is flawed. Well no shit, Sherlock, but what are you gonna do about it? Wait for God to fix it?

Maybe we’ll get lucky and some pale white supervillain bent on destroying the world will accidentally move the earth away from the sun slightly.

Even if you accept the impossible premise that anthropogenic climate change isn’t real/important, consider this:

The world’s population is exploding. Because of the effects of modernization, globalization and technology; our population is consuming exponentially more energy than before.

The effects of this are twofold: one, the supply of traditional energy is running low (in the absence of innovation or proliferation of alternative technologies). However much oil Earth holds, it’s not infinite.

The second problem is linked to the first: the growing scarcity of energy resources increases the opportunity cost for acquiring said resources. Much of geopolitics revolves around placating the region in the world that happens to be most comfortably positioned to deliver the best oil routes or provide market security for its supply and production. Deepwater drilling platforms and hydraulic fracturing of tar sands already have the capacity to take a massive toll on the environment (and that’s when things go according to plan).

We can absolutely disagree on solutions; that’s part of the civic process. But this is a grave problem – one whose gravity should not be as elective as so many people seem to believe.

It is quite literally the job of researchers and scientists to warn us when the deficit between how bad things actually are and how bad we perceive them to be is significant enough to cause tremendous harm in the near or distant future. That people respond with claims of “bullying” or cite public opinion polls on the topic merely serves to underscore the magnitude of public incomprehension concerning this issue in our country.

I tend to side with the skeptics on this issue.
The pushers of the Global Warming/Climate Change/now Climate Disruption agenda make doomsday predictions that never come to fruition. They sound like Harold Camping, blaming the lack of Rapture that he predicted on God giving us another chance.

People like Nye predict an increase in amount and severity of tornadoes because of Global Warming. When we have the slowest start to tornado season in 21 years, blame Global Warming.[www.washingtonpost.com]
^yes this was before the tornadoes 2 weeks ago but the graphs are valid.

I tend to side with the skeptics on this issue.
The pushers of the Global Warming/Climate Change/now Climate Disruption agenda make doomsday predictions that never come to fruition. They sound like Harold Camping, blaming the lack of Rapture that he predicted on God giving us another chance.

People like Nye predict an increase in amount and severity of tornadoes because of Global Warming. When we have the slowest start to tornado season in 21 years, blame Global Warming.[www.washingtonpost.com]
^yes this was before the tornadoes 2 weeks ago but the graphs are valid.

“While this increase in ice volume is welcome news, it does not indicate a reversal in the long-term trend.

“It’s estimated that there was around 20 000 cubic kilometres of Arctic sea ice each October in the early 1980s, and so today’s minimum still ranks among the lowest of the past 30 years,” said Professor Andrew Shepherd from University College London, a co-author of the study. “

Many scientist are trying to blame the what seems to be reversal in ice thickness by claiming that 1. the ocean absorbed more heat and carbon than expected or 2, that the sun is producing less solar activity.
The problem is that saying that validates claims by other scientists that believe those 2 factors effect the Earth’s climate more than anything mankind can do.
I believe that we may be entering a cooling period which will last 15 years.
How many years of slow hurricane, tornado, and ice melting developments will qualify as a reversal?
Everything is supposed to be irreversible and increasing rapidly, yet we at 23 year lows in hurricanes and tornadoes last year and will be this year.
If the El Nino hits this year and then the La Nina follows, the ice will thicken even further, really kickstarting the mini Ice Age.

It’s funny how every time someone brings up facts and stats in an argument your counter is always an attack on the person posting, not the argument.
Isn’t that your usual thing?
At least your crush Otto copies and pastes stats or articles from mainly left leaning sites before his personal insults.
At least people can argue against his stats (like the CBO estimates.)
You bring nothing new to the table,

Now keep on making your argument that black men who say that they hate white men and want to kill every single one of them are not racist.
I take back my earlier statement.
You did bring something new to the table a couple of weeks ago with your race analysis:.
Intellectual Dishonesty

Sorry about that. I was wrong.
Those comments were from another extreme leftie socialist with severe white guilt an username that started with an “A”, Axissillian.
I was wrong. No “yeah but still.”
Sorry about that

Also, still waiting on you to refute arguments instead of going after the messenger.
You almost attempted it down below with @trollsoharduniversity but just resorted to attacking Larry Bell, instead of the stone cold facts about the 1 survey sent to scientists.

Troll’s argument was that the 97% thing came from some phone survey. Scroll up and youll see two completely different analyses of the published science on climate change, both of which end up at the 97% number.

I dismissed Bell because hes a loon, and as those sites show, his claim that 97% comes solely from some phone survey is total BS.

Just in case you missed it above:[iopscience.iop.org]
So 66.4% have no opinion on AGW and “32.6% endorsed AGW.”
Now of those “32.6% endorsed AGW” 97.1% endorse man made Global Warming.
97.1% of 32.6% is not a consensus of all scientists. That would make it roughly 29% of all scientists polled believe that there is Global Warming and that man is causing it.
Massage and be selective on reporting the results to fit your agenda.
Again, the 97.1% is from the 32.6% that endorsed AGW, not from the total number polled.
66.4% had no opinion.
Read your own data before posting it.

So where did that famous “consensus” claim that “97% of all scientists believe in global warming” come from? It originated from an endlessly reported 2009 American Geophysical Union (AGU) survey consisting of an intentionally brief two-minute, two question online survey sent to 10,257 earth scientists by two researchers at the University of Illinois. Of the about 3.000 who responded, 82% answered “yes” to the second question, which like the first, most people I know would also have agreed with.
Then of those, only a small subset, just 77 who had been successful in getting more than half of their papers recently accepted by peer-reviewed climate science journals, were considered in their survey statistic. That “97% of all scientists” referred to a laughably puny number of 75 of those 77 who answered “yes”.
That anything-but-scientific survey asked two questions: The first: “When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?” Few would be expected to dispute this…the planet began thawing out of the “Little Ice Age” in the middle 19th century, predating the Industrial Revolution. (That was the coldest period since the last real Ice Age ended roughly 10,000 years ago.)
The second question asked: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” So what constitutes “significant”? Does “changing” include both cooling and warming… and for both “better” and “worse”? And which contributions…does this include land use changes, such as agriculture and deforestation?

I already shit on Otto man’s life by posting this higher up in response to one of those humorous “97%” claims, but i figured id put it here too to get the word out. After all, Otto and many others are all about “citing sources” so I figured i would cite one that they never do. Get shit on

Again, the source you cited — without actually citing him — is Larry Bell, a right-wing “space architecture” professor who has no expertise in climatology and whose ramblings have been thoroughly dismissed by actual scientists.

And you cite him as the ironclad rebuttal to all those scientific organizations listed above. Too damn funny. You’re such a pathetic joke.

Larry Bell, an endowed professor of space architecture, said he blames misrepresented statistics and misleading politicians for the widespread belief in global warming in his book, “Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind The Global Warming Hoax.”

“The notion of carbon dioxide being a pollutant is silly because carbon dioxide is what makes plants grow; it’s what whales breathe,” Bell said.

@AYCE
Until you show me that the 97% number came from somewhere else than the AGU phone survey (Which you know it didnt, you fucking sheep) what I “clumsily copy pasted” is perfectly valid. I didnt know only scientists were valid to copy paste on here. I could do what you do and link to bullshit biased wiki pages, i guess thats valid #sorrytoruinyourlifeagain

I would like to agree with Mr Bell’s second quote, and add that carbon dioxide is what you exhale, so you should do the planet a favor and kill yourself

you cite a website called “de smog blog” I wonder how fucking refutable or unbiased that source is. And you try to shit on me for citing a “right wing nut” . what a fucking joke you are. I guess its fine to cite blog sites that are blatantly pro globlal warming.

I get so sick of this discussion. If you live on planet earth you know that the weather has changed drastically and it can only be attributed to one cause. Man. Anyone that doubts this is an idiot with a lot of financial interests to protect.

I’m not sure how having a vacant stare(Loris), not having the correct facts at your disposal or being a careerist bitch qualify you to even speak to this guy. His message is not for these people. They have other agendas. His message is for the real people, the ones who actually care. I saw the attached video and decided the whole debate doesn’t really matter, the cost to us, as a race, of not doing something about global warming and it being true is devastatingly worse than us doing something about it and it turning out to be a prolonged ‘blip’ in the data.

I would like to say. Even if it does exist, as most of the missionaries on this site would like to say, what the point of us spending billions to do shit when other countries like china and mexico wont play ball? Why wreck our economy more than obama already has, shut down coal plants (btw if you want electricity, coal isnt going anywhere for a long time) if the rest of the world isnt unified? And the day after obama released this report, he flew in his jumbo jet to accept an award from steven speilberg. The day Obama and his goons actually act like its a crisis, I might have an inkling to believe it

Climate Change. Don’t you guys mean Global Warming? Or even better, Global Cooling before that? When the people who tell you this are the very same people with a track record of failure, how is it that the ones who don’t believe them the ones who are crazy? These people are selling fear, and you guys are just eating it right up. I’m 100% for a cleaner environment and sustainable energy. I’m just against use to fear to sell it.

OK, just a few things. I don’t think you’re trolling here, but honestly curious, so I’ll respond in kind.

1) Climate change and global warming are used fairly interchangeably by quite a few people, even climate scientists. There are a few reasons for this. One of them is that, when Ronald Reagan took office in 1980, the subject of climate change was starting to become an issue, due to nascent research into the subject of pollution and its effects on the environment. Reagan decided that “climate change” sounded bad. After all, change can be scary, right? So they decided that it would never be mentioned, preferring to use “global warming” in all official statements & reports instead. Let’s face it, if you’re in the Midwest or cold north, global warming doesn’t sound so bad, right?

So, OK, either way, the description works.

2) There isn’t really a “track record of failure.” There have been errors made over the years, and erroneous statements, because climate science is fairly new, and the results are sometimes unexpected. Why? Well, because the climate itself can be chaotic, and storms and tornadoes and hurricanes often happen with or without the ‘benefit’ of climate change.

Now, if you think that current global warming reports are erroneous, you are wrong. The earth is heating up. What’s not heating (at least as fast) is the surface. However, the oceans are heating up, and quite quickly. That’s one of the things that has skewed results a bit over the years, and has the naysayers shouting “Then why isn’t Miami under water now, smart guy?” Well, it’s because the oceans have taken on the brunt of global warming, to a degree that most scientists didn’t even expect. Yay for the oceans!

Now the bad part is of course that the oceans are heating up. This is…not good. What this can do is cause mass damage to sea life and contribute to a feedback loop with rather severe (catastrophic) results.

This is thermal lag (and in this context is sometimes referred to as climate lag). The best explanation I’ve seen is this: Think about putting a pot of water on a hot stove. Does it immediately heat up to a boiling point? Of course not. It takes some time for the heating to occur, but if it does so uninterrupted, then you will get to a steady boil. That’s thermal lag. It’s the same with the climate. We’re slowly heating it up, adding warmth to the oceans. The effects we’re seeing right now are relatively minor, but when it gets to a steady boil…that’s when it’s pretty much game over.

3) Global cooling was certainly a working theory in the ’70s and later, and is still on the plate for some climate scientists, simply because, again, the climate is a hard beast to fully predict. Meteorology and local weather patterns are hard enough to pin down, much less what the global climate might or might not do. Suffice to say, however, that heating up the earth continually will likely have negative repercussions for most current life.

Glad to be of service! It’s an interesting topic that I think a lot of people misunderstand, largely due to the fact that, as you pointed out, the terminology often changes. To the scientists this no doubt makes sense, but to laymen & casual observers, it can become confusing and frustrating. What climate science really needs is a better marketing department (kind of a joke, but not really).

I wish people would argue this hard to get Uproxx to have the comments section not suck so many balls:

like/dislike button
notification when someone replies in a thread you participated in instead of just when you created it
when you reply, the button to reply should be at the bottom of the thread, not the top of it, you have to scroll back up after you read it which just gets silly the long the threads get
a mother grabbing Edit button
just about anything else, this is basically one step above a text file that only lets you hit save once

At this point I guess they just prefer to have this ass comment system…

If you don’t “believe in” global warming and climate change, then you’re just a fucking idiot. Our politicians know it is fact but are staying mum about it because they have vested interests in the things that contribute to it or make it worse (oil, coal, etc). As long as they can line their pockets with gold from lobbyists and big energy companies, this will continue. It has been shown and forecasted that it is already too late to do anything constructive to narrowly avert any crises that may happen. We (citizens of the world…not just the U.S.) will be left with the mess. Until we have a major shift/change in our political system, this will continue. It is a sad, sad thing but true. Greed sucks.